Caffeine and Sugar
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: What if Lelouch wasn't exiled? What if he grew up as a member of the Imperial Royal Family, and went to Area 11 on his own free will? And in the background, evil is going on, when the royal children wish to see their father dead and the throne empty and up for the taking. "Lelouch vi Britannia, are you deliberately trying to ruin my prom?" -Angst, Romance, Slice of Life, Humor, AU-


**IT's here! It's finally here! My baby! This is what I've been planning for MONTHS! This story hits the AU radar pretty hard. And it's basically a set of moments from the same AU universe, which are loosely connected. I hope you enjoy them. I hope you realize that the sole reason this monster exists is so that I can finally play with my favorite pairings – Milly/Schneizel and Nina/Odysseus! Uncinventional pairings ftw!**

a.t.b. 2010

Pendragon, Royal Complex, Medical Facility

There's a little girl with an oxygen mask on the bed. She has twig like legs and arms and the fingers of her little hands are like snapped match sticks. There's a little girl who may never wake up again on the hospital bed. There's a little girl who will never walk again on the hospital bed. There's a little girl who will never have a mother again on the hospital bed. There's a little girl who will never see again on the hospital bed.

And worse yet… There's the broken body of his daughter on the hospital bed.

This is the price of VV's jealousy.

Charles looks down, and he knows, he knows… Nunnally can't make it into court life like that. It's a family of vultures, just waiting to tear apart tender flesh, to climb up the ladder… No. Better to send her away, somewhere where VV won't look, or even try to find her. Somewhere where court life is just a mere whisper in the distance…

"I know what you're thinking. So don't."  
He doesn't need to turn around to know that it's the witch, CC, with her cat-like eyes and grass green hair.

"Don't what?" he asks gruffly.

"Whatever." CC says and moves to stand next to him. She doesn't offer condolences. Probably knows he's received enough in the last two days to last him a lifetime. In any case, Marianne is alive. So it doesn't matter.

"What are you going to do now?" she asks instead. "VV betrayed you. He'll do it again."  
"I knew he was a wild card. Too much like me to be anything else."

CC chuckled.

"With all due respect, he's an insufferable little shit."

"Yes."

They both looked down on Nunnally's matchstick body in silence for a while.

"I have to send them away," Charles said. "Both Nunnally and Lelouch. They can't remain in court."

"Why not? They'll be right under your eyes."  
"Exactly. I need somewhere where VV can't force his hand."  
"And?"  
"What and?"  
"I'm assuming you have a plan already. Else, you wouldn't be talking to me."  
"Japan."

"Japan?"

"I'll send them there. Essentially, as diplomatic hostages. As soon as I bring it down, they automatically assume an untouchable status. Nice, clean, neat. I've started negotiations with the Prime Minister Kururugi. Or rather, Schenizel has."  
"Schneizel? He's only eighteen."  
"It's not his age that matters. You know it."

She threw her head back and laughed a symphony of chiming bells.

"Oh, Charles! I knew hanging around you would be good! You are so… not boring!"

He shook his head and shot her a glare from beneath his thick eyebrows.

"Lelouch will hate you, you know," the witch remarked, suddenly serious.

"So? Let him hate me."  
"No. You don't understand, Charles. He already blames you for his mother's death. Now you're planning to discard him and his crippled sister in a foreign country like they are completely useless, all in the name of Britannia's prosperity. He will _hate_ you."

"Do you have a better proposition then?"  
"Win the war with Japan. Install a viceroy. Then send them away, under said viceroy's guardianship. Et voila!"

"You make it sound pretty, CC. I can't win a war in such a manner of time that deporting them would be this quick, easy and neat as you make it sound."

It was her turn to give him a glare, from under delicately arched green eyebrows.

He put his hands up.

"Alright. So maybe I can. Why bother?"

"Um," said CC, " Because land, political power, proving a point to the world, your children safe from VV, and just plain simple joyous victory as opposed to dragged months of negotiations?"

Charles shook his head.

"Do you know what I ought to do, CC?"

She cocked her head to the side and regarded him curiously.

"I ought to get you in a straitjacket, and throw in a scientific facility somewhere, where people will dissect you to get to the bottom of the geass, and the secret of your immortality."  
"Oh, Majesty, you're such a sweet-talker. Careful now, or you'll charm a girl."

"But," he said taking a deep breath, "I will let you roam free and listen to your birds whisper courtly secrets in your ear, and hope, for all our sakes that your resolution to my problem is just as neat and simple as you make it out to be."

She laughed again, and put a dainty hand on his, leaning in so the silky curtain of her hair brushed his face.

"I knew you'd see it my way," she told him, voice gliding like velvet, tightening chokingly around him.  
"Don't overstep your boundaries, witch," he snapped, and she giggled.

"Oh, you are so entertaining! I'd better stick around you and yours!"

~x~

a.t.b. 2010

Pendragon, Royal Complex

"Your Majesty, Lady Gabrielle la Britannia has requested a private audience with you. Will you receive her?"  
Charles narrowed his eyes, filtering through all the names in his mind. Ah. Gabrielle. Clovis' mother. What could she possibly want with him privately? The money that he allowed at her disposition for raising Clovis was more than sufficient.

"Send her in," he ordered, and leaned back in his chair, looking at the door.

Gabrielle walked in with slow graceful steps, and curtsied. She was a small, pale artresial woman, like an ancient porcelain doll. Her blue eyes stood to large on her small delicate face, with its sharp features. In the heavy black and purple velvet gown she looked even smaller.

"Your Majesty," she spoke in her paper-thin voice, "I have come before you with a request. May I be heard?"

He tilted his head to the side and eyed her carefully.

"I am listening to you, Lady Gabrielle," he said finally.

She straightened, as hard is it was, and looked him in the eye as she drew in a deep breath, gathering all her courage.  
"May I be allowed to take official guardianship over Lelouch vi Britannia and his sister Nunnally vi Britannia?" she asked quickly, in one breath, shooting the words out before she lost her nerve.

The emperor was taken rather aback, and his unusual eyes widened a little.

She had shrunk again under his gaze, small and brittle once more, stepping from one foot to the other, looking at the fine carpeting of the room.

She was a woman of fragile health and a meek disposition. There was not a chance that she was planning some ploy for power. It simply wasn't in her nature. After she had lost their second child, who was the be Third Princess, she had fallen even farther, and spent all her days alone in her residence in Pendragon, cared for by the finest medical staff and best-trained servants. And yet, she had come before him, left the refuge of her home, and for what?  
"Why do you ask this of me, Lady Gabrielle?" he asked, carefully studying her wax pale face.  
"I wish to … I wish to ensure the safety and security of those two members of the royal family."  
her small hands gripped the front of her skirts, trembling furiously. Her bony fingers reminded him of Nunnally's small hands as he'd held them last night when he'd seen her in the hospital. Gabrielle was looking at him with frantic, grey eyes.  
"They're children," she said, intensely, "They're just children, and they've lost their mother, Charles, please!"

She sounds almost hysterical, and her eyes are pleading with him, wide and unfocused. She's thrown her ivory hands up, trembling. A thin veil of tiny diamond sweat-drops is covering her forehead.

He puts a hand up to silence her.

"Fine." He says, "You can have them. I name you guardian of Lelouch vi Britannia and Nunnally vi Britannia. The papers will be issued and brought to you. Make arrangements about transporting them to your residence yourself. You are dismissed."

She sweeps one of the lowest bows he's seen.

"Thank you, Charles, thank you," she whispers, and her eyes are glistening with tears. She presses her hands to her lips as she scurries out.

As soon as the door closes CC emerges from… wherever. Charles has long ago stopped trying to figure out how she finds her way around the palace all the time.

"That was a good move," she informs him and took a seat on the edge of his desk, crossing one long leg over the other.

"Was it now?"

"You know it."

He shrugs and sighs.  
"I don't know anything anymore, CC. Some days I feel like I am just this close to achieving my dream… others… Others I just want to give up on it all…"  
"Shook you that bad, huh?"  
"Pardon?"  
"VV. He betrayed you. And now you don't know what to do. It was the one thing you never really saw coming."  
"Watch your step, witch. I am still emperor and you've broken into my private chambers in my office. Some might call that an attempt at my life."  
CC eyes him with a blank face and then bursts into a fit of giggles.  
"You royalties are a funny lot. _Fuu-nny_!"

~x~

a.t.b. 2015

Area 11, Tokyo Settlement, Ashford Academy Campus

"You will never, ever, ever guess what I just found out in my grandfather's office!" Milly was practically bouncing as she stormed into the Student Council room.

All eyes turned on her, expectantly.

"We're having royalty at the school!" she screeched, jumping and clapping her hands, sapphire eyes shining.

"Royalty? What do you mean, royalty?" Rivalz asked, startled.

"I mean, two of the children of Emperor Charles will attend our school starting this Monday! Can you believe it? I didn't have much time to go over the papers, cause I heard footsteps down the hall, but I managed to skim over the files."  
"And?" Shirley prompted impatiently.

"Well, they are Lelouch vi Britannia, age 15 and Nunnally vi Britannia, age 12. Both have only been privately tutored at home up until this point. They are under the legal guardianship of viceroy Clovis la Britannia. Sorry. That's all I could get, but I'll try to do some more snooping around before Monday. Oh, God! I'm so excited. We'll be having royalty as our classmates! Aren't you excited?"

~x~

a.t.b. 2015

Area 11, Tokyo Settlement, Royal Residence

Lelouch was sitting at the breakfast table, glaring daggers at Clovis.  
The blonde seemed completely unaware, as he sipped his coffee, while shifting through the international press.

"I hate you," the younger prince ground out between gritted teeth.

"Mmm?"  
"I hate you," Lelouch repeated. Nunnally winced.

"Don't be cruel, brother," she said softly, and touched his hand. "Brother Clovis is only doing what is best."  
"I do not see," Lelouch said carefully, acid dripping from his tongue, "How forcing me, forcing me, against my will, to attend a public school … with other people, is best."  
"It's a private academy." Clovis corrected cheerfully, "And it will help your attitude."  
"There's nothing wrong with my attitude." His brother snapped.

Clovis shook his head.  
"I swear, as the days go by you're turning into a more and more unpleasantly grotesque version of Schneizel. Soon we won't be able to tell the two of you apart."

Nunnally giggled at that.

"That's impossible. Lelouch will always be Lelouch. That's why I love him. Please, brother. Do not be sour. I look forward to the experience. We will be able to converse with other people our age! Isn't that wonderful?" She clasped her small hands in front of her chest and smiled radiantly.

Lelouch let out the most refined version of a grunt that he could and smiled back, unable to resist.  
"Of course, Nunnally. Of course."

God. He hated dealing with people.

Lelouch entered his bedroom and eyed with displeasure the neatly folded Ashford uniform on his bed. Better get prepared, then. He glared at the black cloth as if it was the source of all his problems.

"Are you ready for your big, big, big day?" the green haired pest hopped easily from where she was seated on top of his desk, munching on pizza.

"Go away, CC," he said. "I'm not in the mood."

"Well. I'll just call Raul the pool boy, then," she offered, mock-grumpily.  
"I am fifteen. You are disgusting." He informed her.

CC had been around Lelouch ever since the death of his mother. Her constant presence had become a bit of a comfort, in a way. He could always count on CC to be annoying, and _there_, just popping out of the nothingness.

"Fine then. I'll leave and let you change. Is that better?"

"Much."  
"Good. See you after school."

She skipped down the hallway on the way to Clovis' painting room. He was manically working on a large canvas of a school cafeteria.

"It's so sad, isn't it?" she asked. "Our little boy," she mock-sniffed, "is growing up."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. He'll always be the same spoilt brat to me," Clovis said with an affectionate chuckle. "Have we gotten a call from Schenizel, yet?"  
"No. Not yet. He's scheduled to talk to us in the afternoon, after the big meeting with the EU ambassadors."

"I can't wait to hear what he has to say about Lelouch's upgrade in status to a normal human being."

They both shared a laugh at that. And then…

"I wonder what Odysseus has written in his journal about that memorable day."

They managed to keep straight faces for exactly thirty seconds.


End file.
